Two-time Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou is opening up about the financial realities of his Hollywood career.
Despite roles in such acclaimed films as Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, and Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond — the latter two having earned him Academy Award nominations — Hounsou says he isn’t compensated fairly for his work.
“I’m still struggling to make a living,” the actor admitted during an interview for CNN’s African Voices Changemakers. “I’ve been in this business making films now for over two decades with two Oscar nominations, been in many blockbuster films, and yet I’m still struggling financially. I’m definitely underpaid.”
The actor has embraced franchise and big-budget opportunities in recent years, appearing in movies like Guardians of the Galaxy, Furious 7, Disney’s live action The Legend of Tarzan, Captain Marvel, Shazam, A Quiet Place Part II, and Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon.
Hounsou first broke out with a leading role in Spielberg’s 1997 historical drama, Amistad, and though his performance was critically acclaimed, he was overlooked when it came time for Oscar nominations — though his costar Anthony Hopkins was not.
“I was nominated for the Golden Globe, but they ignored me for the Oscars, talking about the fact that they thought that I had just came off the boat and off the streets,” Hounsou recalled in the CNN interview. “Even though I successfully did that [film], they just didn’t feel like I was an actor to whom they should pay any respect. This conceptual idea of diversity still has a long way to go.”
When the interviewer voiced surprise that Hounsou is still underpaid despite his accolades and stature in the industry, the actor replied, “That’s a sign for you that systemic racism is not something you can deal with lightly. It’s so deeply inserted in everything that we do, across the board.”
This is not the first time Hounsou has addressed the issue of pay equity for people of color in Hollywood. While promoting his role in the blockbuster DC film Shazam! Fury of the Gods, he told The Guardian that he feels “cheated” by the inequalities he’s experienced throughout his career.
“I’ve come up in the business with some people who are absolutely well off and have very little of my accolades,” Hounsou told the outlet. “So I feel cheated, tremendously cheated, in terms of finances and in terms of the workload as well. I still have to prove why I need to get paid. They always come at me with a complete low ball: ‘We only have this much for the role, but we love you so much and we really think you can bring so much.'”
He added that fellow actor Viola Davis described the issue “beautifully,” explaining, “She’s won an Oscar, she’s won an Emmy, she’s won a Tony, and she still can’t get paid. Film after film, it’s a struggle. I have yet to meet the film that paid me fairly.”
Davis famously commented on the issue during a panel at a 2018 Women of the World event, where she noted, “I have a career that’s probably comparable to Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Sigourney Weaver… People say, ‘You’re a Black Meryl Streep. There is no one like you.’ Okay, then if there’s no one like me, you think I’m that, you pay me what I’m worth. You give me what I’m worth.”
Hounsou, who grew up in Benin and France before moving to the U.S. at the age of 23 to pursue acting, explained that his work on Amistad inspired the creation of his Djimon Hounsou Foundation, which seeks to “champion a visceral connection between the countries of the African diaspora and the motherland and to heal the wounds that slavery left behind,” per its website.
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“My acting work really opened my eyes,” Hounsou said. “As I was doing research for [Amistad], I became profoundly aware of the disconnect between Afro descendants from their roots and culture. Because when you don’t know where you came from, you don’t know who you are.”
He continued, “I had this compelling need to do something for my people, for my continent, and that was really what compelled me to start my [foundation] so many years later.”
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